The New Humanitarian welcomes new CEO Ebele Okobi.

Find out more
  1. Home
  2. Asia

Reporter’s View | Verena Hölzl on covering two sides of a refugee crisis

‘It felt like going back and forth between two completely different worlds.’

Refugee homes in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh Verena Hölzl/IRIN
Rohingya refugees have etched their fragile homes into slippery hillsides or along floodplains. Aid groups fear a cyclone or monsoon rains could be a disaster in Bangladesh’s packed refugee camps.

Journalist Verena Hölzl moved to Myanmar to cover the country’s transition from junta rule to democracy. What she found was even more complex.

A wildly diverse society with long-running conflicts on multiple front lines, Myanmar now faces charges of genocide for the military purge and persecution of its Rohingya minority.

In this Reporter’s View, Hölzl describes the night-and-day experiences of travelling between her home city of Yangon in Myanmar, where anti-Rohingya sentiment dominates, and the teeming refugee camps of Bangladesh, now home to nearly one million Rohingya.

“It just felt like going back and forth between two completely different worlds,” she says. “In Myanmar, you would have people take to the streets in support of the military, while on the other side of the border I witnessed this humanitarian crisis.”

Hölzl has continued to cover the story both in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Her reporting for The New Humanitarian has explored immense violence and deprivation – but also the more mundane aspects of daily life in the middle of an emergency.

“The Rohingya aren’t only victims,” she says. “As journalists we also owe them the stories that humanise them.”

Share this article

Get the day’s top headlines in your inbox every morning

Starting at just $5 a month, you can become a member of The New Humanitarian and receive our premium newsletter, DAWNS Digest.

DAWNS Digest has been the trusted essential morning read for global aid and foreign policy professionals for more than 10 years.

Government, media, global governance organisations, NGOs, academics, and more subscribe to DAWNS to receive the day’s top global headlines of news and analysis in their inboxes every weekday morning.

It’s the perfect way to start your day.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian today and you’ll automatically be subscribed to DAWNS Digest – free of charge.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian

Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

Join